Saturn

Compiled by Donnette E Davis

www.staidenshomeschool.com
 Our Solar System

Saturn

Saturn Facts:
• If you could find a bathtub big enough, Saturn
would float in it.
• Some of Saturn's moons control the width of its
rings. These are known as shepherd moons.
• Although it is made mostly of gases, scientists
believe Saturn has a small rocky core.
• Saturn is the sixth planet from the sun, and is a
giant gas giant.
• Saturn has 34 named satellites.

How big is the planet?

Comparison of the size of Saturn and the Earth

Saturn is 120,536 km or 9.449 Earths wide at the equator.

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 Our Solar System

When seen through a telescope, Saturn is one of

the most beautiful sights in the night sky. It looks
like a big ball inside of rings.
Saturn is a very large gas planet which spins very rapidly on its axis. It
spins so fast that it flattens out the top and the bottom of the planet.
The fast spin also causes Saturn to bulge at its equator. Saturn's
atmosphere has winds which can blow at over 1800 kilometres per
hour! The white spots on Saturn are believed to be powerful storms.
Saturn is surrounded by over 1000 rings made of ice and dust. Some of
the rings are very thin and some are very thick. The size of the particles
in the rings range from pebble-size to house-size. Scientists believe
that the particles came from the destruction of moons circling the
planet. As comets and meteorites smashed the moons, Saturn's
gravitational pull shaped the particles into rings. Saturn has at least 52
moons. Some of these moons orbit the planet within the rings, creating
gaps in the rings.

True or False

The rings around Saturn contain pieces of ice which are all the size of a
baseball.

False. The rings around Saturn are made up of dust and ice. These pieces
of dust and ice can be as small as pebbles or as large as a house.

Did You Know?

The Hubble Space Telescope photographed a storm on
Saturn. This storm was as wide as the Earth.

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 Our Solar System

What is its surface like?

Saturn is mostly gas and liquid. Saturn may have a small core of rock and ice.
The atmosphere has bands, but they are not as colourful as Jupiter's.

What are its rings like?

Saturn casts a
shadow on its rings

Saturn's rings are composed of rock and ice particles ranging in size from specks
of dust to the size of a house. Some particles might even be a few kilometres
wide! The particles in the rings are actually spaced far apart. It would be easy to
pass through the rings.

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 Our Solar System

Map of the Saturn System (NASA)

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 Our Solar System

What are its moons like?

Saturn has 56 moons, and many of them have names. The size of Saturn's moons
and the size of the chunks of ice in its rings are similar, which means that we can
never know the exact number of moons. New moons are still being discovered.
Saturn's biggest moon is named Titan, and is large enough to be a planet in its
own right!

Shepherd moons

There are small potato-shaped moons in or near Saturn's rings. They control the
ring particles with their gravity. That is why they are called shepherd moons. Six of
them are known, and there may be more.

Mimas

Mimas is mostly made of water ice with a small amount of rock. It has a large
crater for its size called Herschel. It is 130 km across, making it about a third as big
as Mimas. The crater makes Mimas look like the Death Star from the Star Wars
movies.

Enceladus

Enceladus is made of ice. It is denser than other icy moons. That suggests it also
has some rock inside. It has smooth areas, cracks and some craters. The smooth
areas are younger. Craters there have been erased within the past 100 million
years. Water vapour was found over a smooth area around the south pole. The
cracks and grooves suggest tectonics similar to Ganymede's. Some ridges similar
to Europa's ridges were also found. Those suggest oceans like Europa's under
some areas of Enceladus. Tidal forces from Dione could be powering some of
this activity. It is because Enceladus orbits Saturn twice for every orbit by Dione.
This makes Dione and Saturn tug on Enceladus. This is similar to how Europa and
Ganymede's tidal forces on Io power Io's volcanoes.

Tethys
Tethys is an icy moon that has many craters, including
the huge Odysseus. It is 400 km across, 1/5th as big as
Tethys is. The crater had become flattened because the
icy material does not hold its shape as well as rock
would. There is also a large valley called Ithaca Chasma.
It is 3 to 5 km deep, 100 km wide and 2000 km long, three
fourth of the way around Tethys.

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 Our Solar System
There are two moons, Telesto and Calypso, which share Tethys' orbit. Telesto is
ahead of Tethys and Calypso is behind it.

Dione

Dione is made of lots of ice and maybe some rock in the core. It has lots of
craters. The craters are flattened because the ice does not hold their shape as
well as rock. One side has bright white lines that are fractures. Two moons share
Dione's orbit. Helene is ahead of Dione and Polydeuces is behind it.

Rhea

Rhea is an icy moon similar to Dione with some rock in the core. It has many
craters mostly on one side, and the other side has some bright white icy areas.

Titan
Titan is the largest moon of Saturn and the second
largest one in the solar system. It is the only moon
in the Solar System that has a thick atmosphere.
The atmosphere is made of nitrogen, argon,
methane and various organic compounds. Its
surface has light and dark areas and few craters.
However, the Cassini probe discovered a huge
crater 440 km wide.

Hyperion

Hyperion is made of water ice with a little rock. It is potato shaped. It wobbles
instead of rotating in the same way other moons do.

Iapetus
Iapetus is almost entirely ice. It has a
light area called Roncevaux Terra that
has craters. There is a big dark area
called Cassini Regio that covers half of
Iapetus. The dark material may be from
Phoebe. Some of it is on the bottom of
craters. Some huge craters and a ridge
had been discovered in Cassini Regio
by the Cassini probe. The ridge stretches
1300 km along the equator. It is up to 20
km high, which is over 2.26 times higher
than Mount Everest.[More huge craters
were found in Roncevaux Terra when
Cassini went by Iapetus again.

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 Our Solar System
Phoebe

Phoebe is made of ice and rock. It looks dark because it has a layer of dark
material on the outside. It also looks rough.

Other moons

There are two groups of small outer moons. Phoebe is part of the second
outermost group.

How long is a day on this planet?

One day on Saturn is about 10 hours and 39 minutes in Earth time.

How long is a year on this planet?

One year on Saturn is about 29.46 Earth years long. That is 10,760 Earth days!

What is it made of?

Saturn has a rocky core. Around the core, there is ice. Above the ice is liquid
metallic hydrogen. On top of that is gaseous hydrogen. There is no place where
the hydrogen suddenly turns from a gas to a liquid.

The gaseous hydrogen makes up most of Saturn's atmosphere. Other gases there
include helium and some other gases. There may be rain made of helium falling
through the hydrogen. There is also ammonia on the surface.

How much would Saturn's gravity pull on me?

If you were floating close to the cloud tops of Saturn, it would pull you down with
a force only a little stronger than the force of Earth's gravity. The effects of
Saturn's large radius and its mass almost cancel each other out, making the
force only a little bigger. So, if you weighed 100 lbs. on Earth, you would weigh
106 lbs. on Saturn.

Who is it named after?

Saturn is named after the Roman god of agriculture. He taught people how to
farm. He was the father of Jupiter. Saturday is named after him.

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 Our Solar System

Days of the Week

The seven-day system we use is based on the ancient astrological idea that the seven known
celestial (“heavenly”) bodies influence what happens on Earth and that each of these celestial
bodies controls the first hour of the day named after it. This system was brought into
Hellenistic Egypt from Mesopotamia, where astrology had been practiced for centuries and
where seven had always been a propitious number. In A.D. 321 the Emperor Constantine the
Great grafted this astrological system onto the Roman calendar, made the first day of this new
week a day of rest and worship for all, and imposed the following sequence and names to the
days of the week. This new Roman system was adopted with modifications throughout most
of Western Europe: in the Germanic languages, such as Old English, the names of four of the
Roman gods were converted into those of the corresponding Germanic gods:

Celestial Germanic modern modern

Body Latin god English Italian
------- -------- -------- --------- ----------
Sun Solis Sunday domenica
Moon Lunae Monday lunedì
Mars Martis Tiu Tuesday martedì
Mercury Mercurii Wodan Wednesday mercoledì
Jupiter Jovis Donar Thursday giovedì
Venus Veneris Freya Friday venerdì
Saturn Saturni Saturday sabato

The Latin names for the weekdays survive in the modern Romance languages (though the
weekend day names have been altered). Also, Japanese words for the days of the week also
correspond indirectly to the same planets.

However, Prof. Neves of Universidade Nova de Lisboa says that there are remarkable
exceptions: at least in Hebrew, in Greek, in Arabic, and in Portuguese (and in languages that
were informed by those, like the Timorese Tetum), the days of the week are numbered.
Sunday is number one (or day of the Lord in Portuguese - Domingo- and in Greek -Kiriaki).
Friday is number six (except in Arabic, which calls it Day of the Gathering) and all 4
languages call Sabbath (Sabado,as-Sabt, etc) to Saturday.

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